Wouldn't it just be a lot easier for everyone if he came out and said exactly what his involvement was? And why is it OK for so many of his closest employees to be crooks but he suggested that Doyle should resign when one employee of one state agency was charged with a crime (charges that were later dismissed)?

I fully believe innocent until proven guilty. However, as my representative, I also believe he should be forthcoming about what his involvement was and is. Especially when the law says you can't create a legal defense fund unless you, or agents acting on your behalf, are being investigated. That would certainly imply he is at least has something to worry about...

It's not only the money being spent by Scott Walker for his campaign - in fact 20 times more than what those big out-of-state unions Walker refers to incessantly - I think we better all be concerned about our democracy when the likes of one of his big contributors, Sheldon Adelson from Las Vegas - to the tune of $250,00.00 - told Forbes magazine "as long as very wealthy people can buy elections, I'm going to", surely threatens "voters" in this country. You might remember he gave Newt Gingrich 16 or 17 million for his campaign. Now what possible interest could a billionaire from Nevada have in the WI governor's race? I only hope his ability to pick candidates holds out thru June so Scott Walker can join Newt in looking for a job! They pay better in the private sector anyway.

Beloit billionaire — Walker's largest donor — owed no state taxes in 2010

Did you read the headline? "Owed no state taxes taxes" doesn't say that she owed taxes and didn't pay them it means by law she "owed no state taxes" and I'm certain that the tax laws that applied in 2010 were established by the liberals beloved Dufuss Doyle and company. What are you going to whine about next week after the big loss.

Whether or not someone pays taxes on April 15 is truly a meaningless detail. Have you looked at someone else's tax forms? Take a look at your own. You get a break for the interest paid on your home mortgage. You get a deduction for charitable donations. You get a deduction for each kid you might have. There are all sorts of deductions available to virtually everyone. No one complains when they get a tax 'refund,' which means they pay no taxes on April 15. Yet people are incensed if someone – especially a 'rich' person – "owes no taxes." How do you know what taxes they already paid? How do you know what other things they did with their money in order to not owe any taxes? Just like the deductions we all think are wonderful for ourselves, virtually all deductions are designed to put money to a useful purpose (like charitable support and home ownership). It's ridiculous to point fingers at people who 'owe' no taxes unless you know they're cheating in some way. That's hard to prove or even assume unless you personally know their finances.

I'll call BS. If they donated all of their profits to charity, then fine, good for them. However, has has been pointed out numerous times, many of the very rich in this country are able to game the tax system so they owe little or nothing. I'm not blaming this person. My commentary is that we need to fix the stupid system that allows people that make ridiculous amounts of money to avoid paying even the same share the rest of us do. They also made a $500,000 donation that wasn't tax deductible. I'm guessing they made that money somewhere and didn't just pull it out of a savings account...

What is used more often are purchasing government bonds or taking cash from overseas operations to avoid tax bills. Last year 1,470 millionaires and billionaires paid nothing into the federal tax system.

Even if they do have to pay in, they often pay in at a much lower rate than you or I do. Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett are both known for paying significantly lower rates than I qualify for. And in the case of Buffett, he's asking the federal government to fix the problem because even he thinks it's stupid. The 400 richest earners in the US paid an effective tax rate of 17% while most middle-class earners pay closer to 35%. Current Republicans are repeatedly blocking any change to increase taxes on the rich (probably because they won't get their $500,000 or in some recent cases multi-million dollar donations anymore)...

My husband worked for the Hendricks for 25 years, they are very generous with their money, to a point. If there's a loop hole, if there's a tax break, they will find it. You don't go from being a bankrupt roofer to a billionaire without getting some sort of help.I will not deny the fact that there was many hours of hard work involved too. Diane Hendricks is the shrewdest of business women, she taught her late husband well. I wonder how the good people from her Mulehide subsidiary are feeling after seeing this, many whom lost jobs over the past 5 years. I can so see her "sleeping with the enemy".

"You get a break for the interest paid on your home mortgage. You get a deduction for charitable donations. You get a deduction for each kid you might have. "

No mortgage, don't itemize, no kids. But I did have a tax bill. And here's something for Walker, my property tax bill was bigger than last year. But sadly, I made so little I was eligible for a dwindling Homestead Tax Credit which the Republicans will soon take away if they retain control. And who is it they are happy to give tax credits and deductions to? Billionaire Diane Hendricks who happened to have an extra $500,000 to give to Walker.

No mortgage, don't itemize, no kids. But I did have a tax bill. And here's something for Walker, my property tax bill was bigger than last year.

You can try to blame those higher property taxes on Walker but the real culprits for that are a lot closer than Madison. They are the big spenders at the Lincoln County Government, The Tomahawk School District and Nicolet College. Walker and the current legislature have done more to reduce the property tax burden on home owners than any politicians have in the last twenty years.

So lets' talk about Gov. Walker not raising anyone's property (except mine, I guess which went up $40.00). If I were a public service employee, my take-home pay decreased by an average of $400.00/month, I would not have had a raise for 4 years and will not get one - per the new "decrees" from Madison for at least 3 more years. If I were a teacher I would be paying between $3000.00 and $6,000.00/year for higher deductibles, co-pays and premiums for my health insurance plus contriubting to my pension fund. If I were a student or the parent of a student I would be paying $400.00 to $600.00/year more for tuition. If I was receiving Earned Income tax credit or Homestead tax Credit, it would or will be reduced or eliminated, as will Badger Care. Living in the City of Tomahawk I am now paying $144.00/year for garbage collection which I didn't before and I have no idea what the water utility increase of 40% is going to amount to. So while the Governor says he didn't raise anyone's taxes, it's still costing most of us more to live in WI. And while forcing the middle and lower classes to pay more (or live on a lot less) to balance his budget, Walker still found millions of dollars for "corporate "welfare which has yet to prove its merits. I would gladly pay more taxes in a heartbeat to live in a state that I have always been proud of and which cares about "all" of its people, than have this division that has been "forced" on friends and families by the secrecy, ideology and lack of compromise by the G.O.P. Hopefully I'm not alone and we "the people" are heard on June 5th!

Living in the City of Tomahawk I am now paying $144.00/year for garbage collection which I didn't before

Now Governor Walker is responsible for the Garbage Can fiasco in Tomahawk. There is a war in Afghanistan, there was a tsunami in Japan last year and an oil spill on the Gulf and I suppose Governor Walker was responsible for them, too. Do some of you people ever read what you write? The following statement is not true;

If I were a public service employee, my take-home pay decreased by an average of $400.00/month,[url]I would not have had a raise for 4 years and will not get one[/url] - per the new "decrees" from Madison for at least 3 more years.

What public employee had no pay raise in 4 years and will not get one in the next 3 years? That's BS.

The garbage can deal came about when another carpetbagger came to city hall and proposed a deal with the city fathers that would reduce his labor rates considerably and at the same time increase of the efficiency of his operation with far fewer hours spent collecting garbage. Beyond the reduction in labor costs it would also provide him with a decrease in equipment and fuel costs. My guess is is he also sold or arranged the sale of those garbage cans, that the taxpayers now rent, to the city at a profit, also. His proposal undoubtedly showed a decrease in the annual billing for garbage collection and disposal to the city and that was the selling point. The taxpayers are now stuck with garbage can rent and the garbage collection company now makes a bigger profit. That whole deal was in play before Walker came to power. The upcoming increase in city water utility rates also have absolutely nothing to do with Governor Walker. Your problems are with city hall and not the State.

I'm sorry, but you cannot have government workers in unions and then have unions lobbying the government and binding all tax payers to a contract. It is a conflict of interest that is certainly not fair to the taxpayer. All taxpayers should be getting the best value for the dollar with our taxes. That is defined as market-priced labor, not contract-priced as in Wisconsin, and certainly not with artificially high priced insurance from WEA Trust as a fringe benefit. There is zero evidence that union workers outproduce and outperform non-union workers especially in the confines of government employment. This system allows the Tomahawk Teacher's Union president and her husband to collect a wage and benefit package that well exceeds $200,000 per year yet the average household income in Lincoln County is far less than $40,000 per year. With that size of an income should they not contribute to their pensions and insurance costs? That average householder contributes to their own pension and insurance through their own employment and at a far higher percentage of their income than the teachers do. Now in their wisdom the Tomahawk School Board will pay the teachers a bonus to dump their hospitalization insurance costs onto a spouses private employer's policies driving those employer's cost of production up. That bonus deal is nothing more than a gift to the teachers union members at taxpayer and private employer expense.

If I were a student or the parent of a student I would be paying $400.00 to $600.00/year more for tuition.

A very good example of the reasons why there are increases in tuition can also be found locally, too. Elizabeth Burmaster the Madison idiot that is now running Nicolet Collage in Rhinelander organized a retreat for 10 of the college's highest paid officers spending thousands of taxpayer dollars this past July at the exclusive Red Crown Lodge on Trout Lake. Burmaster had the college billed $3,708 dollars for exclusive property use, including single occupancy lodging and recreation, conference, and dining facilities, and for meals and service charges. The retreat was billed as professional development meetings and took place July 21 and 22. The breakdown was $2,280 for the property use and lodging, as well as $810 for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and a $618 service charge. The attendees are some of the highest paid staff members at the college. Burmaster makes $162,035 a year plus $50,673 in benefits for a total compensation package of $212,708. All totaled, the combined compensation package for those 10 Nicolet officials that attended the retreat is $1,503,111. With those kinds of salaries these "public servants" should be able to buy the own meals and given the scale of the facilities at the college there should have been at least one open conference room in open in July. Any wonder why tuition costs are up? One can just imagine how much is wasted on similar ventures throughout the entire higher educational system.

In addition to the 17 million cost of this recall election I wonder how much time was lost especially in Madison but also elsewhere in the state involving public employees working on Recall efforts, etc., while supposedly working on the taxpayers dime. One must also wonder just how much taxpayer money has been wasted at our schools and universities force feeding students with union developed information that is selective and cognitively reinforces the instructors personal views of Wisconsin politics. Selective exposure, selective perception and selective retention, just like the opinions expressed in the teacher's lounge and then delivered in the classroom.

What public employee had no pay raise in 4 years and will not get one in the next 3 years? That's BS.

Uh, this one basically would have if the UW hadn't countered a private company's offer. Here is the breakdown.

First, I accepted an offer at the UW (admittedly, probably for much less than I should have but I've always been able to climb quickly once I've been able to demonstrate my skill and work ethic).

Shortly after being hired, I received approximately a 1.2% pay increase that had been scheduled for all Academic Staff at the UW. Which I believe would put it just over the 4 year mark.

We were scheduled to receive another 2% pay increase about three years ago but that was canceled as part of budget cuts.

Furlough days were instituted about three years ago. In effect, this reduced my pay to below the salary I originally accepted on my start date. This lasted for about two years until Walker's changes were passed.

One year ago, Walker's changes took effect. Furlough's were ended (my salary went back to what it was just after getting the raise about three years earlier). However, the additional costs meant I was making even less in take home pay than before. I began interviewing for new positions. Within about a month I had an offer for significantly more than I was making at the UW and with better benefits (they would cover all insurance costs other than a deductible, they offered a very good vacation package, etc.). Because I actually enjoy my job at the UW I talked with my managers and at the last minute they were able to secure an offer for close to the same salary I would have made at the private company (although I'm still worse off due to the higher health insurance costs, parking, etc. at the UW).

Starting this year, we now have a deductible on our health insurance (this is in addition to the increases we already pay). My dental coverage no longer works at my dentist (they switched to a plan owned by a dental group so all employees on that plan can only go to about 8 offices) which means I'll have to pay for an additional dental plan. On campus parking rates are being increased (I'll pay about $900 next year for the privilege of being able to go to work).

Anyone that isn't blind also can look at the current budget situation on campus and know the chances of receiving a pay increase without a promotion or forcing them into a counter-offer situation are nearly zero anytime in the near future as UW costs are increasing while funding is being drastically cut, all while we are teaching more students and doing more research than ever before.

So, I would say I'm am exactly the person they are discussing except that I managed to get a promotion. Possibly because it would cost them even more to hire anyone to do some of the things I do (it should be noted that at the time of the promotion I was one of three people in the state publicly listed as certified on one of our computer systems).

Most of my co-workers are in the situation you seem to think isn't possible. I've worked both public and private jobs, for nearly the same amount of time now. Trust me when I tell you things suck equally in both. It's not all sunshine and roses as a public employee like some seem to think. And I still don't understand why those of us in the bottom 90% of the pay scale are so content fighting with each other while Walker is taking from so many in that group (much more from those in the lower 50%) and handing tax cuts to those in the top 10%???